Twitter has announced that it is “turning off” its prototype app twttr from today. Back in January of 2019, Twitter introduced the application at the Consumer Electronics Show, to publicly roll out experimental changes and see if they are worthy of being added to the original platform. Thereafter the app was made available to testers from March of 2019. T
wttr, a throwback to the original name, was being used by the company as an experimental testing space where they could focus on new features, including designs for threaded conversations. The application was also used as a prototype to test out other changes that Twitter wanted to make on its overall application. As the application is being shut down, Twttr users have been asked to move to the original Twitter application.
In a tweet, declaring that the application is being shut down, Twitter Support wrote:
We appreciate the feedback you gave us through this run of our prototype app twttr. For now we’re turning it off so we can work on new tests to improve the conversation experience on Twitter.
If you’re using twttr, switch to the main Twitter app to keep up with what’s happening. https://t.co/xq4emx9HeH
— Twitter Support (@TwitterSupport) December 3, 2020
Turning off Twttr was not a hard decision to make for the company as the platform had nearly no dedicated user base. It also lacked the newer features of Twitter like Fleets and Topics. Therefore, there was no point in keeping a largely unused application. The application was also not offering new experiments or tests.
In another tweet, Twitter Support has informed that they will be removing the “threaded replies” feature from their app. Twitter introduced threaded replies first on Twttr in March 2019. Later the feature was brought to the main application, this year in May. Threaded replies are replies to a reply made to a tweet. The idea is confusing and it made following conversations on Twitter much more confusing. Twitter Support has informed that they will be taking off this feature from the application to make things easier.
Your feedback shapes Twitter.
We asked and you let us know this reply layout wasn’t it, as it was harder to read and join conversations. So we’ve turned off this format to work on other ways to improve conversations on Twitter. https://t.co/pA4Yd0QfyW
— Twitter Support (@TwitterSupport) December 3, 2020
